Looking Glass
by AFY
Summary: As punishment for something that was never really their fault in the first place, Lancer forces Paulina, Valerie, and Sam to babysit a bratty kid who ends up being more than she seems.... DxS, DxV, and DxP.
1. Monsters

**Author's Note: Before anyone asks, no Danny won't really end up with any one, all the parings will just be implied. I'm an evil bitch that way. Muhahahaha...**

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**Disclaimer: Don't own no Phantom.**

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**"Dancing in your darkness**

**Dancing in your fear**

**forgetting all your hidden monsters**

**Shedding all your tears"**

**- Cruxshadows, "Monsters" **

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_She was exhausted to the point where her limbs ached almost unbearably like the twist of tree branches caught in a storm before snapping off. But she kept on running..._

_ "Lynn," she whispered, fighting back tears. She continued on her way...before the monster could catch her..._

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There was that dull, familiar hum of conversation, that familiar clink to silverware against plate as it was lunch time, the cafeteria more crowded than usual as outside it was raining as it had been the following few weeks.

"Sam?"

The Goth girl jumped at the sound of her friend's voice, breaking out of her reverie, her magic marker accidentally slashing black across the white poster she'd been working on.

Looking up, Sam Manson found light blue eyes seated from across the table set on her own heliotrope ones. "Yeah?"

"What're you working on? A project? " Danny asked and then he froze, wide-eyed in solemn anxiety as he realized that Sam shared the same classes with him and Tucker, so they were all bound to have assigned the same thing.. "We don't have any projects to due... do we?"

Sam smirked. "It's due on the fourth." Danny suddenly paled, and she let out a chuckle. "Relax. Breathe. I was only joking."

"Funny," Danny said sarcastically as he shot her a pointed glare. He sighed then, leaning back and running a hand through his jet-black hair that lately had been in a dire need of a haircut. "Honestly, with all these ghosts running around, I wouldn't be surprised if I _did _end up forgetting something like that. I am so swamped with school work that it's not even funny."

Sam smiled sympathetically. "You know you got Tucker and me, we're always here for you ." She said softly.

Danny smirked. " Well you do owe me, after all you're the one who did this to me."

Sam rolled her eyes. "You are never going to let that one go, are you?"

Danny grinned playfully at her. "Nope!"

"Oh, c'mon that was a year ago. I was only fourteen!"

Danny just smirked. And the Goth could only sigh. No matter how many apologies she could give, Danny would never let it go that it had been _she_ who talked Danny into checking out one of his parents' latest ghost inventions- the Ghost portal. It was that what ed him to gain supernatural powers along with the controversial alter-ego of Danny Phantom.

"So what are you really working on?" he asked curiously, looking at the poster.

"Eh, nothing much. Just a protest I'm working on against Axion labs."

"What did they do this time to upset our dear Sammy?" Tucker asked jokingly, joining in on the conversation as he sat down with his tray of food he finally got from waiting at the ever so long lunch line. "Ruined the forest? Messing with animal rights?"

Sam wrinkled her nose at his lunch- a never-ending pile of meat. "_Speaking_ of animal rights…"

Tucker glared at her then. He was silent, never removing his eyes from hers, as he slowly, and deliberately, scooped a forkful of his meal into his mouth.

Sam cringed. "Tucker, gross! God! You're even worse than my dad!"

"Really? Sounds to me, he has a pretty good idea of what food is supposed to be." Tucker's eyes fell over Sam's salad.

"At least he knows enough to not consume like ten barns a day!" Sam shot back,

"Guys! Please, can we not do this again?" Danny mentally kicked himself for saying that, because as soon as he said it, his friends' eyes were on him, searching. Immediately, he held his hands up. "Hey, I am taking _no_ part in this."

Sam snorted. "_Omnivore_..." she muttered under her breath as she reached for her water bottle only to realized she forgot to get herself one from the drinking machine. She sighed, knowing that she had to walk to the other side of the cafeteria to get it. "I'll be right back guys." She told her friends as she got up and walked off across the cafeteria.

When she had the water bottle in her hand, Sam quickly opened it, taking a quick swig before turning around. She was about to walk back to her friends' table when suddenly her ears picked up on the word "Phantom".

She turned her head to find that it was Paulina and Valerie. They were too absorbed in what looked like a squabble as some sort to notice Sam's presence, scowling darkly at one another.

"Ghost boy isn't evil. He's here to protect us!" Paulina insisted. Ah... so that's what they were fighting about.

"Open your eyes! Phantom is a menace and should be taken down because of that." Valerie said fiercely. Sam narrowed her eyes.

"That's not true!" She found herself saying at the girl. "Maybe if you'd open your eyes you could see that!" Inwardly she goraned as she realizzed that she was agreeing with Paulina.

Sam never liked Paulina as the A-list girl was just about everything she stood against. And then there was Valerie and her whole vendetta toward Danny's alter-ego that was just a complete misunderstanding. And it certainly didn't help, that at that same time, Valerie was into Danny's human half, earning Sam some competition-Whoa! Wait a second! Competition?! For what?! Danny was her friend, it wasn't like she felt _that_ way about him….Her cheeks suddenly tinged pink at the thought of Danny in another one of his lopsided smiles.

Sam was suddenly heard Valerie say heatedly. "Mind your own business!"

Paulina didn't look happy herself as her eyes looked like chips of turquoise ice. "I don't know what you're trying to do, you little loser but let me tell you something, if you think for one second that Phantom needs you to back him up, you got another thing coming! He has **me**!" She flicked back her waving mane of long black hair and sneered, "Besides, last I checked you're going out with that Fenton loser, so I don't know why you are even bothering."

Sam dropped her jaw. "What?!" Sam and Valerie looked flabbergasted at that. "He's not my boyfriend!" Sam said defensively at the same time as Valerie said, "He's not her boyfriend!" then after a brief pause, they said in unison, "He's not a loser!"

"Oh yeah, Paulina well let me tell you something," Sam said, walking over to the two of them, never able to finish what she was going to say as she suddenly tripped.

It all happened so fast...

Paulina let out a shriek as Sam accidentally toppled over her and Valerie, taking the two of them down to the floor with her.

It had been during that process that Sam had dropped her water bottle when that happened, and it leaked as it smacked loudly against the tiled floor. They landed on top of the bottle and after it knocked the breath out of the three of them, it had exploded, soaking their faces, hair and the entire front of their shirts.

The cafeteria fell in dead silence as they watched the whole scene in wide-eyed, jaw-dropped shock. And that had been enough for Kwan as he stood up with a manic grin, **"FOOD FIGHT!"** he yelled at the top of his lungs and grabbing his sandwich, he flung it at one kid, and it hit his cheek with a mayo-soaked slap.

That was when all hell broke loose. Every kid grabbed onto any weapon choice of food they could get, and in in under just a few micutes the whole cafeteria began to look like a five-year-old's finger-painting at every white wall, corner and area of the floor.

"Get off of me, you freaks!" Paulina cried out, pushing Valerie and Sam off of her.

Valerie gasped, caught in surprise and stumbled suddenly into a puddle of what looked like tomato sauce and spaghetti, staining the entire front of her shirt.

That was when she was consumed by sudden anger, and grabbed the nearest weapon she could find which had turned out to be a bottle of ketchup and squeezed it at Paulina's direction.

Seeing this coming, the Latina yelped and hastily ducked. And unfortunately Sam was the one to have ended up with a face full of ketchup as she had been standing behind her.

Paulina smirked, looking smug as she stood up. Triumphantly, she let out a "Hah!", and then an, "Eeeeek!" as Sam (who grabbed her own weapon-_ironically_- a bottle of mustard) and Valerie squeezed their condiments on either side of her head.

Paulina widened her eyes, then narrowed them... _Oh, it is on now_…and she quickly bent down to grab a fistful of her own weapon that was on the floor.

"**_Little Women_**, people!" bellowed Lancer and instantly everyone stopped what they were doing. That is, except for Paulina, who had been far too absorbed in her revenge to pay attention.

"**_EAT SPAGHETTI, GOTH GEEK_**!" and she flung it at Sam's direction.

Sam widened her eyes in surprise and dodged it in the nick of time. It was just her luck however that it ended up on Lancer who had the bad luck of standing beside Sam.

Noodles and sauce hit against his white shirt, dotting his face in red, with a few noodles comically hanging over his head like hair. This time, when silence hung over the cafeteria, it was heavier in the air.

"You three," his voice came off chilly and muted, the three girls cringed, absently deciding that they all rather preferred his yelling at him. . "I'd like to have a word with you. **Now**!"

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**Author's Note: Oooooooooh, they're in trouble now!' Grins' Hopefully, you all found that amusing. **

**I sure did. I even had one hell of a time writing it all out.  
**

**Anyways, read, and review. Critique always encouraged and gratefully taken in. **


	2. Unheard Tears

**Author's Note: This is really fun to write. Who knows I might even do a comic version of this at my deviantart account, depending how well the story will turn out for me.**

**'Smiles sheepishly' And I feel weird asking this, but could I get a little more feedback on this. I'd really appreciate it. I feel pretty pathetic on having so many hits with this story yet so little amount of reviews.  
**

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**Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom. If I did, I wouldn't be doing this, now would I?  
**

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**_ "Watching backwards as life like pictures _**

_**Stinging thoughts, born with phantoms **_

_**We danced above a world forgotten **_

_**Moments cherished...even now **_

_**A train-wrecked heart loves fairy tales **_

_**Singing from a gaping wound **_

_**However time has left unsettled **_

_**My memories play out of tune**_

_**You can't unmake a cold mistake**_

_** You can't undo the hearts you break **_

_**You can't erase the poet's fate **_

_**Not even if you try**_

_**And she had Audrey Hepburn's smile **_

_**With deeper sadder eyes **_

_**The only thing she said **_

_**No one hears Cassandra cry **_

_**Because the earth is standing still**_

_** And the truth becomes a lie**_

_** A choice profound is bittersweet **_

_**No one hears Cassandra cry"**_

_**- "Cassandra (Ego Likeness remix)", Cruxshadows**_

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_She had hidden behind a dumpster inside an alley of some sort that was in-between a run-down market and an abandone factory at the docks._

_She sighed. She was was safe….for now._

_She brought her knees up to to her chest, wrapping her arms around them as she suppressed her sobs…_

_A few moments later fatigue won over her, she was oblivious to the tears she'd work so hard to suppress as they made thin, clear paths down her cheeks, and then she fell asleep._

_The dumpster she had her back against was already staining with the red of the blood where her wings had been torn off…._

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**Chapter One; Unheard tears**

"This is all your fault!" The Latina fumed.

Sam looked up from her mopping and shot a scathing look at Paulina's direction. When the Latina turned around, flicking her waving mane of long black hair, Sam suddenly had an idea and smirked. Slowly, she raised her mop, and like a baseball bat, swung it at Paulina's bottom, hitting against it with a loud slap.

Paulina cried out of surprise, turning around, and yelling something in Spanish that sounded none-too flattering at Sam. Sam wasn't listening however, instead she was walking away to finish the remainder of her mopping.

As punishment, Lancer had forced the three girls to stay after school and clean up the mess the food fight today had made on the cafeteria. Where Sam had taken the role of mopping, Valerie had been the one cleaning up all the tables with a dishrag.

With the back of her hand, she wiped the sweat off her forehead, glaring at Paulina as she looked up. "Would it kill you to actually do something other than wasting air?"

Paulina glared at her before smiling in faked innocence. "Not as much as it certainly killed me when I didn't dump you _sooner_ from the group," she replied sweetly, and walked off.

Valerie's jaw dropped. That was uncalled for. It was still somewhat a soft spot for her when Paulina and the rest of the popular kids had dumped her from their group when her father had lost his job, leading her to be broke, all thanks to that stupid ghost kid and his dog.

_'Why that cocky air-headed little'-_ "Must not kill, must not kill…" Valerie kept repeating to herself quietly as her left eye began to twitch. She resisted the urge to put a can of ass-whooping on Paulina for two reasons.

One, Valerie had trained herself to go after ghosts, not humans, however annoying the latter turned out to be. And two, there was a witness in the room, whom speaking of which, interrupted Valerie out of her reverie.

"Glad to see you finally seeing the light." said witness remarked.

Valerie turned her face to see Sam had stopped her mopping, chin propped on top of the handle of the mop she held in front of her, as she stared at her.

"_What_?" Valerie asked shortly.

Sam answered with a jerk of her head toward Paulina's direction. The Latina was taking a seat at one of the tables, sulking. "You seeing Paulina as she truly is." Sam explained casually.

"And what would that be?"

"A superficial little princess of course."

"Huh." Valerie smirked,"Normally, I would agree with that... if it was someone else that said it."

"And why is that?" Sam asked suspiciously.

"Because it's pretty biased coming from you of all people."

Sam narrowed her eyes. "How's that biased?" She demanded.

"Are you sure you're not only saying that because Danny has the hots for her?" Valerie smirked even wider as she saw Sam's jaw clench, tightening the grip she had on her mop.

What she liked best out of her rivalry with the girl was the fact that Sam was both an interesting and worthy rival. That, and the fact that it was just plain fun in pushing her buttons.

"For the last time," Sam said briskly "Danny and I are friends and _only_ friends. I'm not jealous of _that_." She pointed at an oblivious Paulina who was checking her nails right now.

"Well, since you two are just friends, I guess it won't hurt if _other girls_ come up to him, huh? After all, he's a pretty cute guy…." Valerie reveled at the look suddenly written on Sam's face. She looked just about ready explode.

"_Ugh!_ You know what? Forget it!" Sam answered in disgust, "I don't even know why I'm even having this stupid conversation with you!"

"Hey, you're the one who started it."

"And right now, I'm _reaaaaaaaally_ starting to regret it," Sam countered,"so I suggest you'd back off out of my love life. And Danny's as well."

"Is that a challenge?"

"For you?" Sam suddenly smirked,"_Always_."

She and Valerie were glowering at each other when Lancer had strolled in. "Gray, Manson," he warned them, "settle down," and sullenly they obeyed. He turned his head around, and inspected the newly-cleaned cafeteria. "I see you three really cleaned this place up nicely. I'm impressed."

"Yeah," Sam said, the sarcasm dripping from her tone as she and Valerie glared pointedly at Paulina "the_ three _of us worked _so_ hard."

The pretty Latina only scoffed. "Whatever. Can we go now?"

Lancer sighed. "Not just yet. If you three don't mind, I'd like another moment of your time…"

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"You know I am very disappointed in you three," Lancer told them as they awkwardly followed him down the hallway. It was eerily quiet within its abandoned state, Paulina feeling the goosebumps upon the top of her arms as they stopped before the door that led to the teachers' lounge. 

"But sir!" Valerie insisted, "It wasn't our fault-"

Lancer held up his hand, cutting her off. "Really?" he said dryly,"From what I've gathered, it was you three that had started that whole incident, arguing with one another."

The three girls cringed. Okay, _that_ part was kind of true…

"Can't say that I'm surprised though." Lancer continued, "Disappointed? Yes. Surprised? Sadly, no. This isn't your first dispute with one another after all." he grinned suddenly, sadistically,"but believe me, it'll be the last, if I have anything to say about that, because let me tell you, I've just had about enough of it. Usually, for the stunt you pulled today I would've given you a month's worth of detention . However, I've decided I'd like to handle your case much differently."

"What are we going to do?" Sam asked warily.

"Girls," Slowly, for the sake of drama, he opened the door "I'd like you to meet Lynette Mercy."

Standing before them was a pouting girl, nine or so years old. She was a gangly thing with a long neck, dressed simply in only a gray hooded sweatshirt, and faded baggy blue jeans, plain white sneakers poking out of the frayed hems.

Her dark honey-blonde hair was thick, and wavy; pulled back at the nape of her neck into a sloppy ponytail with several feathery strands escaping, and framing her thin face. Freckles scattered across her nose, and she had a mouth that was slightly too full against a delicate chin.

Her wide eyes were behind round glasses, an odd color of warm yellowy-brown, they flashed angrily at Lancer as he had said her name. "It's Lynn!" She snapped.

Lancer sighed. "Sorry, I'll keep that in mind…"

The girl only ignored him and his half-hearted apology. Instead, she studied the girls before her, suddenly taking notice of their presence "Are these the ones?" She demanded coolly.

The girls frowned in puzzlement. "Uh, Mr. Lancer?" Valerie asked slowly "What is she talking about?"

"Girls, this Lynn, my niece. My sister and her husband had to attend a business meeting at the last-minute and couldn't leave Lynn alone for the next few weeks so they dropped her off at my house. Unfortunately my sister seemed to forget that I had my own things to worry about." he scowled suddenly, "_As usual_." he muttered under his breath. The three girls all looked at him weirdly, cocking their eyebrows. Talk about family issues...

"What does that have to do with...?" Sam trailed off as she, along with Paulina and Valerie widened her eyes. Lancer grinned then.

"Lynn, I'd like you to meet my students." he told the young girl happily,"They'll be watching you for the next following few weeks everyday after school."

"Thrilled," Lynn said flatly, not looking thrilled at all.

Paulina dropped her jaw. Sam sputtered. And Valerie's left eye started to twitch again. "_**WHAT?!**_" They yelled as one, so loud that the birds outside had flew out of the trees.

"It's nice to meet you too." Lynn deadpanned.

And with that, the three girls were convinced of one thing and one thing only. They've all died and gone to Hell….

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**Author's Note: 'Grins Mischievously' Lynn's a fiery one ain't she? Hopefully I've gotten her personality down for you all. 'snickers' I'm already feeling sorry for the girls….**

**Read and review please. Critique _always_ encouraged.  
**


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